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Several organizations recently joined PPVAR’s growing membership roster, but two of the new additions are particularly striking. Digital Life, a home management platform from AT&T, is now on board, according to Keith Jentoft, an industry liaison for PPVAR. This comes about seven months after Digital Life earned CSAA Five Diamond certification.

Investment bank Imperial Capital also joined the organization. This is doubtless an interesting development as well, with Imperial being the organization's first member from the private investment side. In a certain sense, an investment bank showing interest in video verified monitoring seems unsurprising, given signs of the technology's more mainstream direction, plus the technology’s ability to drive higher average revenue returns per customer. Additionally, when a private investment bank allies itself with a best-practices organization, it suggests their interest in the value proposition runs fairly deep.

The group also added The Illinois Alarm Association and the Michigan Association of Police Chiefs as members—both organizations the likes of which we've become more accustomed to seeing engage with PPVAR, an organization focused on pooling knowledge from members in both public and private sectors.

As PPVAR forges ahead toward its goal of written standards for video verification, I’ll be keen to see what kind of bearings its new members have on the organization’s direction. Will the addition of Digital Life compel other cablecos and telecoms to join? And with respect to Imperial Capital, I’m curious to see what kind of role they play in promoting PPVAR’s cause. Will their membership generate further interest in video verification from other private investment groups?

The organization is convening in the coming days, Jentoft said. After they do, I hope to get a clearer picture of where the organization is at this stage of the process.

MELVILLE, N.Y.—Verint’s Jan. 6 agreement to acquire KANA software for $514 million will not directly impact Verint’s video surveillance and physical security business immediately, but there may be some integration of KANA capabilities into the Verint’s video intelligence business at some point.

MIAMISBURG, Ohio—Matrix Systems’ transformation, which began last year when Holly Tsourides took on the role of CEO, continued Jan. 6, when Tsourides announced that the company is creating two separate lines of business: Frontier, a manufacturing business and Xentry Systems Integration, a systems integrator.

DirectView Security Systems, a division of New York-based DirectView Holdings, is adding a video verification component its offerings to clients, which include both commercial and larger residential customers. As part of the initiative, the company plans to incorporate central station alarm monitoring and remote video surveillance into a comprehensive security solution.

In its initial announcement, DirectView stated it would provide a state-of-the-art UL-Listed facility for these services, but at this this juncture it’s not clear who that third-party partner will be. Security Systems News reached out to DirectView but did not receive a response by press time.

The impetus behind the video verification push, the company noted in the announcement, is multifaceted. As any champion of video verification will tell you, the value proposition lies in the technology’s ability to add the extra layer of security of trained professionals monitoring video footage, while saving clients money by reducing false alarms. In the announcement, the company said the solution will enable clients to also save money by reducing their dependence on on-site staff.

The verification component can also provide added urgency to a legitimate alarm, making dispatches a higher priority for law enforcement.

“We have received numerous inquiries from both current and potential clients about these services as part of a comprehensive and competitively priced security solution,” Roger Ralston, CEO and chairman of DirectView, stated in a press release. He added that the central station initiative is designed to make the company a “one-stop-shop” for comprehensive security solutions.

By way of a partnership with Axis Communications, cloud-based video verification service I-View Now is expanding its hosted video offering to include both cloud-hosted and central station monitored video with the release of its I-View Cloud service.

I-View Now made the announcement today in a news release. “Cloud stored video has matured as a service and product offering and coupling those benefits with central station monitoring is a true game changer,” Larry Folsom, president of I-View Now, stated in the news release.

The pairing of the cloud solution with Axis’ IP cameras offers customers a video monitoring service with the added security of central station backing. The video is streamed to the cloud then supplied to the central station for professional monitoring.

Just more than a week ago, at Affiliated Monitoring’s Security Summit ’13, I had the privilege of meeting Larry Folsom after hearing him speak as a panelist about sales strategies for video verification offerings, which continue to move on a trajectory toward broader, more mainstream adoption.

One of the overarching points Folsom emphasized in that panel was the importance of determining and then targeting a specific market for which a given video verification service or platform is best suited. He’s practicing what he preaches. Judging by the company’s statements, the I-View Cloud seems ideal for small businesses with low camera count sites, especially franchises with multiple locations (the release points specifically to gas stations, convenience stores and retail outlets). As with any cloud offering, the advantages are obvious: less reliance on less reliable forms of local storage for video clips.

In the coming days I plan to follow up in greater depth on some other RMR sources within the I-View Now cloud offering, including VSaaS, guard tours and video alarm verification from one installation.

OMAHA, Neb.—With the goal of increasing the percentage of revenue it derives from services from 25 to 40 percent, G4S Technology, a national systems integrator and project management company for electronic security systems and communication networks, has launched a new division.

AT&T has officially launched its mobile PERS unit, called the EverThere, a small wearable unit manufactured by Numera Libris. The device automatically detects falls, has two-way emergency calling, and will deliver both enterprise and direct-to-consumer solutions.

Chris Penrose, SVP, AT&T, emerging devices, shed some light on AT&T's plans for channeling the product to market. “In terms of end-users, unlike traditional PERS, which target individuals in their 80s, this mobile solution would offer true independence and freedom for the healthy aging population as well as those living with chronic conditions.”

For me, AT&T’s announcement has a touch of synchronicity. For something of a niche offering, mPERS has come up quite a bit over the past two weeks, the topic surfacing in conversations with Josh Garner, CEO of AvantGuard Monitoring, and Kristin Hebert, dealer relations at Acadian Monitoring Services, who both said their companies have made strides with the fledgling offering. Though traditional units still comprise about 90 percent of their PERS account bases, the gains do represent some modest traction for a market that was essentially a non-starter some three or four years ago.

Unlike the market for traditional PERS, which consensus says is poised to explode, mPERS tends to have a few more skeptics. A common critique I hear about mPERS is that if you’re pitching the product to a healthy, ambulatory, active senior demographic, that very same demographic, by virtue of being healthy, ambulatory and active, will see no reason to pay for the unit. Another position I encounter is that cell phones, in all their ubiquity, have all but usurped the value of mPERS units.

This second point is worthy of consideration, but as AT&T’s device illustrates, the automated response provided by certain mPERS units or even professionally monitored mobile apps offers some differentiation.

As always, time will tell whether mPERS adoption will be buoyed along with traditional PERS, as the latter makes its projected rise in the market. As these markets become more valuable, I’ll be interested to see how some of the central stations fare as competition proliferates, both in the industry and outside of it.